A show this weekend is set to bring together generations of dancers to celebrate the remarkable 50 years of a school that has been an extended family.
The Margaret Rose School of Dance started out when founder and instructor, Margaret MacInnes, was just 19.
It has since gone on to win global recognition, as well as performing at countless town and individual celebrations across Helensburgh and Lomond.
A display at the Victoria Halls on Saturday will include three generations of a family dancing, and a routine practised across Zoom from former pupils around the country. A civic reception will be held at the Civic Centre as well.
Margaret didn’t start dancing until she was nine-years-old, considered “quite late”, she explained.
Margaret's first dance show (Image: Contributed)
“I was very shy - not that you can believe it now," she said, "and my mum decided to put me to dancing to give me some confidence and to get me out and get me meeting other people.
“But she didn't think I would take it as seriously as I did when she started me. But it's been a great life and a great opportunity.”
Just six years after she started, Margaret left school and started teaching, eventually gaining her qualifications. And a year later, she started her own school, named for her first and middle names.
Fifty years later, the Margaret Rose School of Dance - sometimes called MRD within the school - is preparing for its show that is both distinct and a celebration of five decades of performance and family.
Margaret's mum, Theresa, had six children to raise on her own and it wasn’t easy to meet the cost of sending her to dance school.
It makes it a more keen loss that her mum had passed away before she got a chance to see Margaret be awarded a British Empire Medal for her contribution to dance.
“She was always very proud,” she said.
Her mum and four brothers later moved to North America, with Theresa later returning after 20 years.
Today Margaret makes use of her brothers in various cities. One in Edmonton travels to see the school when they do annual Canadian competitions. Another in Phoenix, Arizona, prompted the school to head to the Phoenix Highland Games last year.
"So the brothers all come in handy," she admitted.
Does that dictate where the school goes?
"Sometimes, if the accommodation is there and you know your brother will pick you up at the airport and take your dancers around, yes, very much so," she replied.
Despite the many international travels over the decades, it’s actually a two-way relationship with Russia that Margaret goes to when she describes what the school is about and what they’ve done.
Parents who went on stage for Margaret's first dance show (Image: Contributed)
Over about 10 years, they travelled to Russia and brought maybe 15 dance pupils at a time over to the UK.
“They arrived in London with a pound for two weeks holiday and that was all the money they had,” she recounted.
“That would have been something like a week's wages for their parents.
“So we hired a coach and went down to London and picked them up and took them for day trips.
“And [former provost] Billy Petrie at the time took these children to the Co-op in Helensburgh or Dumbarton and they got every single one of them a pair of shoes.
“We went to Stirling for the day and we gave each child 10 pounds.
“I sat in the middle of the shopping centre and came back and they were whooping and jumping up and down.
The Margaret Rose School of Dance's first overseas trip to Venezuela staying and dancing in a five-star hotel at a Scottish food and beverage festival (Image: Contributed)
“I said 'what's the excitement?’. And they said the girl bought a pair of trainers for her brother, and she had a penny left.
“And they were so excited that this kid had managed to do that. So all the money we gave her for the day, she spent on her brother. So that's a vivid memory.”
The celebration of 50 years will include some of Margaret’s distinct style.
“I only do crazy things to entertain the children,” she explained. “We're doing Sister Act so I'm coming out as the Mother Superior at the beginning of it all.
“I used to do these things when my mum was alive and she would sit in the front row and I could just see her shaking her head, 'there she goes'.
"And I've got absolutely crazy trousers I had made maybe 20-30 years ago and they've got an M on one cheek and an R on the other cheek in fluorescent colours and they're bright green, orange and pink so they're be making an appearance as well at some point - I haven't decided where."
The school with then Provost Billy Petrie (Image: Contributed)
Past pupils of the school have been preparing a special routine too. About 20 from around Scotland and even England have been learning the display over Zoom and will put it together on the morning of the show.
"It will be really exciting see it all come together,” said Margaret. “It will be an emotional day."
After Covid, Margaret dialled the school back a bit to three days a week that she could manage herself, with about 50 pupils. Many are just there for the fun of dance and taking part in displays such as Winter Fest or Summer Fest, or charity events at Loch Lomond Shores, or visiting nursing homes.
But 15 years ago she took the school back to the competition circuit and pupils have continued to excel in Scotland and around the world. They’ve been to Bali, Malaysia, Japan, the Disney stage in Florida, they head to competitions in Nova Scotia in a few weeks.
And then there’s a display in France to mark 40 years since Helensburgh was twinned with Thouars.
“I was at a championship at the weekend and I just love it because you're watching such a good standard of dancing and your children are there and they're coming home very successful,” Margaret explained.
“I think they're very lucky because the standard of the dancing - the champions and the ones who have been there a while, I think when the younger ones come in and see these older girls dancing, they want to be exactly like them so they motivate themselves.”
With the standard of competition, what does Margaret say to her students when they don’t come out on top?
“Today wasn't your day, but - there's always a but there - you need to do such and such, you need to listen, you need to practise if you want to compete at that standard,” she explained.
“So it's up to them. There's only so many hours of the week you can teach them and then after them it's up to them to practise.”
After five decades of trips, championship wins and thousands of dancers who have been through the doors, when you ask Margaret about teaching, she immediately goes to a recent moment and pupil.
“I’ve got a little four-year-old who, if I'm in the hall first, she opens the door and she runs in and give me the biggest hug, MARGARET, as if I'm the most important person in her life,” she said, getting emotional.
“And she was dancing at Gourock Games and I got there just as she went on the stage and then her wee face lit up when she saw me. And that's magic moments.
“When you're going to your class every week and you've got a wee child that comes running at you to give you a cuddle, you just think, 'well I'm doing something right'.
“It is like a family. I consider it to be the Margaret Rose family. So it's an extension of my own family.
“I’ve loved every minute of it.”
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